APEIL. 



127 



The Cowslip {Primula veris), one of the most 

 beautiful of British plants, now appears dotting the 

 moist meadows, especially upon clayey soil or the lias 

 formation ; and curiously enough the lias may often 

 be traced for miles at this season by the abundant 

 crop of cowslips on its surface, while the adjacent red 

 marl meadows have scarcely any.* The cowslip has 

 always been a general favourite, and surely a field of 

 cowslips in the vernal season is an object on which the 

 eye and the memory rests delighted; for who is 

 there that has not tossed about the cowslip-ball with 

 sportive glee, or brought home in triumph the first 

 expanded one that could be discerned in the field, or 

 rising beauteous in the shade of the thicket. A lady 

 may well be credited the recorder of a joyful maiden's 

 feelings, as in the following lines 



" But oh, what rapture Mary's eyes would speak, 

 Through her dark hair how rosy glow'd her cheek, 

 If in her playful search she saw appear 

 The first-blown cowslip of the opening year." 



MRS. SHERIDAN. 



And so to many is the first sight and scent of the 

 floral queen of the spring, for visions of childhood will 

 then rise again in the mind, for a transient moment, 

 brilliant as its golden bells when they droop lovely in 

 the balmy freshness of the morning. Then, we can 

 hardly fail to call to mind the beautiful simile of 

 SHAKSPEARE'S relative to IMOGEN !- 



" On her left breast 



A mole, cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops 

 I' the bottom of a Cowslip" 

 And recur also to the " Midsummer Night's Dream" 



* The Cowslip is scarcely found in Devonshire, where there is a con- 

 siderable tract of red marl. But the observation in the text applies to the 

 borders of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. 



